The Turning Point

For you who believe there is this glorious afterward, money can't buy it, the currency of Jesus Christ's blood already has. You see, Asaph rediscovered the perspective of eternity.

Here it is and I think Spurgeon actually summarized it best. He said this, we can happily put up with the present when we truly foresee our future as revealed by God. When you're facing life's deepest and most difficult questions, the answers you need don't come from the culture.

They don't come from the experts of the world. And you certainly can't buy what you need most. The answers your soul is longing for come from God. Because that's true, you need to allow God to shape your perspective through the Word. That's the only way your soul will find comfort and satisfaction that it longs for. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, we're in Psalm 73 looking at some hard questions from Asaph.

But more significantly, we're looking at Asaph's turning point. In his book, What Money Can't Buy, Michael Sandel wrote and I quote, today almost everything is up for sale and if you have enough money or connections, you can just about get whatever you want. For instance, he wrote, you can now buy the right to jump to the head of the line at Universal Studios for $149. You can buy a special front line pass, front line pass that allows you to cut to the front of the line on every ride, show, and attraction.

You can now purchase seasonal access to the carpool lane in certain cities even when you're alone. You, if you have the right doctor, you can purchase access to his personal cell phone for 24-7 service for around $1,500 a year. A growing number of doctors are offering same-day appointments now for patients willing and able to pay annual fees ranging up to $25,000.

Wouldn't that be great though? You get to see the doctor today. That's why you've been sitting in the waiting room because somebody paid 25 grand to see him now and took your place. So if you got the right doctor, if you live in the right city, if you have enough money and the right connections, life can be so much better even when you get thrown into jail, huh?

A clean room. Well, personally, I got to tell you, as I read this, I think that amusement park front line pass is a brilliant idea. Isn't that a great idea? It's a lot of money, but you can actually cut in the line legally. I came to the Wednesday night dinner some time ago and the line, doors hadn't opened yet, the line was down the hallway out and through the lobby and so I was just, I was greeting people and shaking hands near the front of the line. They needed me up there, trust me.

And then they opened the doors and they wouldn't let me cut in. Can you believe that? I'm not going to name any names. It's not that important besides they're not members anymore. Just teasing. Well, we've been in Psalm 73 and Asaph is actually pretty upset. He is the coral conductor for Israel, one of three. And as a leader, he has admitted in his personal testimony that he has almost abandoned his walk with God.

Why? Well, if you go back to verse two, he openly admits in his testimony, he says, my feet had almost tumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. In other words, he's wondering, you know, why do unbelievers have all the connections? Why does it seem like the godly don't have any? Why do the ungodly prosper? Why do bad things happen to good people and why do good people sometimes have it so bad? Why do they get better medical reports, we noted in this song?

You know, why do they get to move up to the front of the line? Why do the ungodly seem to have it made? Why do they he asks in verse four, look there, they have no pangs until death. Now with that statement, he's getting warmer to the answer. He's closer to the truth.

It's not going to register though until until later. However, the truth that is, but he says here is it's as if they glide through life and right up to the grave. He complains that God allows unbelievers to blaspheme without any accountability.

Look over at verse nine, their tongue, he says struts through the earth. By the way, Asaph is dangerously close to accusing God in these statements. I mean, when you think about it, isn't that what complaining is? Isn't complaining really an accusation against God for not giving us what we want or not coming through or not making life easier? I mean, aren't we really accusing God when we complain? We have all sung from the lyrics of Psalm 73.

Asaph arrives then at exactly the place you would expect him to arrive with his perspective. I mean, he comes to the dangerous conclusion that his pursuit and the priorities of worship and purity are all for nothing. Look at verse 13.

He says, I've kept my heart clean and I've washed my hands in innocence. In other words, my relationship with God did not pay off, didn't pay off. I pursued purity and worship and it didn't come through for me. I would have been better off if I had lived like an unbeliever or maybe never lived at all.

That would have even been better. Of course, Asaph is tormented in his thoughts because of this conclusion. Verse 16, but when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task.

In other words, he's saying my internal struggle wore me out. But now we come to the turning point in Asaph's life. Verse 17, it seemed to me a wearisome task. Now notice, until I went into the sanctuary of God. That word, by the way, is plural in the Hebrew text. Until I went into the sanctuaries of God, Asaph is referring to the three subdivisions of the tabernacle and the first temple court, the holy place, the holy of holies.

These constituted the three sanctuaries. Now Asaph has a master key. He's on the payroll, one of the choir directors. It's as if he slips into the outer court in the calmness of that sacred court, maybe in the evening, as all the hustle and bustle is put away. And out in the open, he kind of lays everything out before God. And it's there that he begins to think with God's perspective in God's presence.

And this is the turning point now in his testimony and in his song. Notice, I went into the sanctuaries of God and then I discerned their end. The answer was not a matter of reason or reasoning. The answer was a matter of revelation.

Because with our reason, we can't figure out the scales of justice. But revelation helps us understand certain things. So here, instead of focusing on the success of the wicked, Asaph recalls the revelation of God concerning their end.

Let's just fast forward the tape on everybody. Let's discern their end. See, it isn't so much then about an unbeliever's carefree disposition, as we looked at in our last study.

It's really all about their final destination and this coming awful, awful, terrible devastation. Now, Asaph regains a biblical perspective on the lost three ways. First, he rediscovers that the unbeliever slips into ruin easily. Look at verse 18. Truly, he's speaking to God, you set them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin.

In other words, they might seem like they are the established people on earth, that they are connected, they're cash happy, they seem secure in their finances, their portfolios. James Montgomery Boyce commenting on this text said, they are actually on slippery ground and it only takes a gentle puff by God to blow them off their proud golden pedestals. They not only slip into ruin, secondly, they're swept into death.

Look at verse 19. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors. Job described death as the king of terrors.

That's what he's referring to. They're swept away, they're swept into death. Spurgeon writes, without warning, without escape, without hope, despite their golden chains, their expensive clothing, death does not have good manners and it hurries them away. So you read the dying words of a Queen Elizabeth I of England who made popular the extravagant gowns of her era.

They dripped with jewels and gems and as she lay dying, her last words were, all my possessions for a moment of time. Asaph says, death is coming and to the unbeliever, it is the king of terrors. They slip into ruin, they're swept away in death. Thirdly, they are surprised by judgment. Verse 20, like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. What he's saying here, in other words, is that the Lord will one day awaken the wheels of judgment. And the unbeliever is going to realize that his carefree existence was no more lasting than a dream. All his connections, all of his pomp, all of his pride were nothing more permanent than some fantasy, some phantom, some dream.

Ever notice a certain thing about dreams? They go by so quickly. They don't last. They're just suddenly over. So Asaph says, okay, I get it.

It seems like their dream life has lasted a long time. But in light of eternity, it's only a matter of moments. This is Asaph's regained biblical perspective on the lost. Now, I want to point out Asaph's biblical perspective on himself.

Look at verse 21. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. In other words, Lord, when you pricked my heart, when you convicted my heart over my wicked envy, when you reminded me of revealed truth about the unbeliever's terrible destiny and short lifespan compared to eternity, I realized how embittered and brutish, rude, and even beastly I was in my thinking. That sounds like a true confession, doesn't it? Sounds like he got a good look at himself like you and me when we get a better perspective on who we are and how we think.

He's saying, in other words, how could I have been so blind? He literally writes here in the last part of verse 21 when he says, I was like a beast. It's actually the Hebrew word behemoth. I was like a giant dinosaur before you. And that just kind of took me down a path. What does Asaph know about dinosaurs? So let me chase this rabbit for a minute. Well, the Hebrew word used here by Asaph is behemoth.

It's used, in fact, it's described for an animal in the earliest book of the Bible, which we know to be the book of Job. And my mind went back there. This is what Job described. Behold, behemoth, which I made as I made you. He eats grass like an ox.

Behold, his strength is in his loins and his power in the muscles of his belly. He bends his tail like a cedar tree. A hippo and an elephant don't have tails like cedar trees, do they? Yeah, I would agree with Old Testament scholars that this animal was a member of the dinosaur species. Enough of them have been excavated to discover they had tails like the size of trees.

The largest among them ate grass like oxen. And the startling thing is Asaph writes this as if we would understand what he's talking about. And Job says, look at the dinosaur, expecting his readers to know exactly what he was talking about. This is obviously a reference to a land species now extinct. According to God's word, dinosaurs and humans were alive at the same time. And the authors of Scripture, even the prophet Joel, tells his readers to look at them, meaning they're alive and observable, or at least in the record of recent history.

You know, it's always been interesting to me. You have stone carvings and you have drawings that end up in children's science textbooks. Several thousand years ago, people that drew them in caves show them hunting mammoths and antelope. Even drawings by Native American Indians hunting antelope, hunting mammoths, they end up in the textbooks. But never their drawings of huge animals that look exactly like dinosaurs. They never make it in the textbooks.

They're left out. Joel says in chapter one, he speaks and he uses the same word Asaph uses, behemoth. He says that the behemoth, along with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, are groaning for pasture land to satisfy their hunger. Now, we're not sure which dinosaur Asaph has in mind. It's a generic term for this species.

It could have been the Brachiosaurus, which weighs, based on what I looked up, you can Google all this stuff and substantiate everything I'm saying this evening, 90,000 pounds, 75 feet long, 40 feet high, could not fit in this auditorium. Aren't you glad God created them to eat grass and not people? Asaph effectively chooses here, here's what he's doing. He's choosing the largest land animal, which crushes all sorts of things and lumbers along.

It's large in size, small in intellect, without reason. And he admits, that was me. That was me. But now I understand. Not by my limited reason, but by means of divine revelation.

The unbeliever that I envied, I had forgotten his end. So with this new perspective, his envy turns into pity. We don't envy the lost, beloved. We pity them. We evangelize them.

Why? Because we believe revelation. We believe their tragic end is just ahead. Remember the psalm began, I was envious of the wicked. He's not envious anymore.

Envy has turned into pity. And now he sings of this new perspective. In fact, he has three new perspectives on his own life and the life hereafter. First perspective is this, that God is continually guarding me.

Look at verse 23, the first part. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You might want to underline that wonderful word continually. In fact, you could write into the margin of your Bible the exact translation of that Hebrew word continually. It's the word continually.

Isn't that a great word? Continually. Even as Asaph is blubbering and complaining and arguing and angry and bitter, God had him by his hand.

Continually, a wonderful perspective. God never stops guarding his beloved. Second, God is not only continually guarding me, he writes, God is wisely guiding me. Verse 23 again, the latter part, you hold my right hand and you guide me with your counsel. The right hand was a metaphor in ancient days for purpose, the hand of purpose, the hand of authority, the hand of decision.

Even to this day, we shake each other by the right hand because it signifies our personal offer of welcome, agreement, fellowship. So he's saying God has us by the right hand. And what he means is that God is guiding us with his revealed wisdom and his authority and his purpose and he is personally welcoming us and fellowshipping with us.

A wonderful thought. He's wisely guiding me. Thirdly, Asaph writes, God is not only continually guarding me and wisely guiding me, but God will ultimately glorify me. Verse 24 again, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Afterward. That's a great word, too. Afterward.

For you who believe there is this glorious afterward. Money can't buy it. The currency of Jesus Christ's blood already has. Paying a doctor for access 24 seven doesn't help you win this.

The great physician has already paid for it. This isn't a front line pass at an amusement park. This is an eternal life pass and it takes you way beyond the front line, the front of the line and all the way into the splendor of the father's house of glory. You see, Asaph rediscovered the perspective of eternity.

Here it is. And I think I think Spurgeon actually summarized it best. He said this as he summarized Psalm 73 at least up to this point. He said we can happily put up with the present when we truly foresee our future as revealed by God.

Paul said it this way. When this brief life is over, we will then consider our suffering to have been light when compared to the eternal glory which is beyond comparison. There's an afterword to our story. And for the believer, it is glorious. Asaph is effectively reminding us that for the unbeliever, life on earth is the only heaven they will enjoy, but only for a moment. But for the believer, life on earth is the only hell they will suffer, but only for a moment.

And for us then even death is not the king of terrors. It is the hand that opens the doorway into the father's house. Four years ago, I was given the one year Christian history devotional by one of our elders, and it recounts historical events and biographical vignettes throughout church history. The entry from a few days ago was on the life of 21 year old Eric Liddell. You may remember that was the man who won the 400 meter dash in the Paris Olympics of 1924 because he wouldn't run on Sunday. He entered a different race. They made a movie out of that, and the name of the movie was Cherries to Fire.

Make sure your kids watch that or your grandkids. The following year, this is where the movie doesn't pick up, but the following year, Eric, who was a believer, went to China to teach at an Anglo-Chinese college in Tientsin. He continued his missionary service. In fact, he'd served for several decades, married a girl named Florence and they had a couple of kids. In fact, she was expecting their third child when he sensed the political climate around him changing, becoming very hostile, and he sent her and the two children back to her parents' home in Canada.

They would never see each other again. On March 12, 1943, of course World War II is really heating up, Eric and hundreds of other quote unquote enemy nationals were taken to a prisoner of war camp. Soon after he arrived, 300 students from one of the academies operated by Hudson Taylor's Ministry of the China Inland Mission arrived at that concentration camp, separated from their parents. These children immediately became Eric's focus. He organized the school. He organized them into athletic teams.

He served as the chief translator. A couple of years later, he went to the camp doctors with symptoms that had grown to include partial paralysis of his right leg, trouble speaking, migraine headaches. The doctors seemed unconcerned and they treated him as if he had had a minor stroke.

Their diagnosis was incorrect and within a month, he suffered spasms of choking and coughing. After one of the nurses, this account read, a believer as well and a close friend of the family named Annie, who was there as well, observed his condition. One afternoon, she went to the next room where doctors were discussing Eric and said, do you realize Eric is dying?

They replied, nonsense. Annie quietly returned to Eric's side and sat next to him holding his hand. In just a few minutes more, he whispered, Annie, this is complete surrender. And he died. A few days later, they were cleaning out his things and they found a slip of paper and he had dated it.

It was the afternoon of the same day that he died. And on the slip of paper was the first line of his favorite hymn and they would sing it in honor of Eric Liddell. As I read that, his favorite hymn matches the perspective of Asaph and every believer by the way in this auditorium and every believer throughout the history of redemption, certainly the Christian church.

His favorite hymn that I think Asaph would have been proud to sing that matched his so well reads, be still my soul. The Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide. In every change he faithful will remain. Be still my soul. Thy best, thy heavenly friend through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. Be still my soul. The hour is hastening on when we shall be forever with the Lord. When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, sorrow forgotten, love's purest joys restored. Be still my soul. When change and tears are past, safe and blessed, we all shall meet at last.

Asaph had some tough questions but his soul was shaped by a godly perspective and that perspective brought him peace and encouragement. You're listening to Stephen Davey and Wisdom for the Heart. By the way, today's message called The Turning Point goes hand in hand with our previous message called Forbidden Questions. If you missed that, please go look for it at wisdomonline.org or on our smartphone app. If you'd like to let Stephen know how God's using his teaching to bless you, you can write to him. Address your email to info at wisdomonline.org. Join us again next time to discover more wisdom for the hearts.